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2014:
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p r e s e n t s
Symposium: The Dynamics
of Possible Nuclear Extinction
February 28 to March 1, 2015
at The New York Academy of Medicine
A unique, two-day symposium will be held featuring an international
panel of leading experts in disarmament, political science, existential
risk, anthropology, medicine, nuclear weapons and other nuclear
issues. The public is welcome.
Russia and the U.S. possess 94% of the 16,400 nuclear weapons
in the global nuclear arsenal. The U.S. maintains its first
strike winnable nuclear war policy, and both countries have
raised their nuclear arsenals to a higher state of alert
because of the situation in the Ukraine. Furthermore it has
just been announced that the administration has plans to
replace every nuclear warhead and their delivery systems via
ship, submarine, missile and plane, at a cost of one trillion
dollars over the next thirty years. This symposium will address
the following issues:
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What are the human and technological factors that could precipitate
a nuclear war between Russia and the U.S.; how many times have we
come close to nuclear war and how long will our luck hold?
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What are the ongoing technological and financial developments
relevant to the nuclear weapons arsenals of the US and Russia?
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What problems are associated with lateral proliferation of
nuclear weapons via strenuous corporate marketing of nuclear technology?
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What are the medical and environmental consequences of either a small or large scale nuclear war?
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What are the underlying philosophical, political, and ideological dynamics that have brought life on earth to the brink of extinction?
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How can we assess this situation from an anthropological perspective?
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What is the pathology within the present political situation that could lead us to extinction?
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How can this nuclear pathology be cured?
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2013:
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PRESS RELEASE
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Contacts:
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Task Force on the Americas
Dale Sorensen • 415/924-3227 • mitf [at] igc [dot] org
Colleen Rose • 415/898-0131 • colleenrose [at] juno [dot] com
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Task Force on the Americas to host Gold Fever
Global Screening Event in Marin
On October 25 Gold Fever
will screen in Marin as part of a worldwide discussion on mining
devastation. This eye-opening and inspiring documentary is about
the arrival of Goldcorp Inc in
a remote Guatemalan village.
Winner
of the Rigoberta Menchú Grand Prix at the 2013
Montreal
First Peoples Festival, Gold Fever is a hard-hitting
documentary about three women resisting a transnational gold mine
in their community. Viewing the film, as part of Global Screening
Event, is an opportunity to both learn about and discuss the
issues, and to show solidarity with people—like Diodora,
Crisanta, and Gregoria—experiencing globalized resource
extraction.
Following the screening of the film Carissa Brands will host a
discussion of the film. “We believe that resource
extraction is an underreported issue,” says Carissa.
“By hosting a screening of Gold Fever we hope to shine a
light on the harm to health, community and environment brought by
transnational industrial mining and the connections to our own
communities. As part of a global action, we hope to raise
visibility of these issues in Marin.”
The screening, presented by the Task Force on the Americas, will
take place at 7:00 PM on Friday, October 25 at the First United
Methodist Church, 9 Ross Valley Drive (at Fourth Street), San
Rafael. A $5-10 donation is suggested. No one will be turned away
for lack of funds. The public is welcome. The venue is wheelchair
accessible. For more information, call 415/924-3227 or go to
www.mitfamericas.org.
- What the World
Wants -- and How To Pay For It Using Military Expenditures
a project of the World Game Institute.
What the World
Wants presents a 2-dimensional chart measuring 34-by-23 minus 2
little cubes represents "annual costs of various global programs for
solving the major human need and environmental problems facing
humanity. Each program is the amount needed to accomplish the goal
for all in need in the world. Their combined total cost is
approximately 30% of the world's total annual military
expenditures." 1 cube equals $1 billion. The total chart contains
780 cubes representing annual world military expenditures of $780
billion. Below the chart is the following table.
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Eighteen Strategies for Confronting
the Major Systemic Problems Confronting Humanity:
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- The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
"Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
Focusing on a systemic historical and legal analysis of corporate power
and democracy, the school is designed to help activists
more effectively and fundamentally challenge corporate power, rather than
simply organize corporation by corporation and harm by harm. The School
is dedicated to the memory of Daniel Pennock, a 17 year old Berks County,
Pennsylvania boy who died in 1995 after being exposed to land applied
sewage sludge. His parents, Antoinette and Russell Pennock, travel the
state seeking an end to that practice of sludge disposal -- from which
waste management corporations reap massive profits from hauling and
spreading sludge on farmland.
The Schools are built around carefully designed readings, clear presentations and group discussions.
- Each School reveals how it came to be that the law enables corporate managers to dictate their values, and impose their projects on communities.
- Includes an intense, comprehensive history of the judicial bestowal of constitutional rights of persons on corporations.
- Learn the secret of how Peoples Movements have cut to the essence and won their struggles to be found in the constitution.
- The Anti-Federalists
- The Abolitionists
- The Suffragists
- The Populists
- The Labor Movement
- And learn about earlier Movements, including the
Levelers and the Diggers.
- Experience the Pennsylvania Story an ongoing struggle to take the power to govern out of the Corporate Boardrooms and put it back in our communities where it belongs.
- For people of all ages, interests and occupations
- Classes consist of small groups of 10-15 people like you.
If you take no other training this year, do the Democracy School. It is a superlative unfolding revelation of how corporations have hijacked democracy. It meticulously deconstructs the historical arc that brought us to this precipice. But most importantly, it then departs into the highly pragmatic and inspiring work now underway that is slowly turning the tide . . . This Second American Revolution may be the most important political work going on anywhere in the country or the world.
-Kenny Ausubel 05, Founder and Co-Executive Director, Bioneers
Democracy School was a mind-blowing experience. During the School, I was forced to come to grips with the understanding that I really knew very little about the true structure of law that controls our activism. Democracy School is a must for everyone who seeks to be liberated from our defensive, after-the-fact reactive organizing strategies.
-Krishnaveni Gundu, 05, Calhoun County (TX) Resource Watch
- William Blum, author of:
Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (1995)
Rogue
State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (2000)
West-Bloc
Dissident: A Cold War Political Memoir (2002)
Freeing
the World to Death essays on the american empire (2005)
America’s
Deadliest Export: Democracy (2013)
- Worthy of note:
Archive of prior events: 2005 back to 1996
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